Big things to come for Naval Hospital in 2013

By AMANDA WILCOX

Published: Tuesday, January 29, 2013 at 10:40 AM.

“We’re going to be a lot more efficient when we get over there,” Lane said. “Right now we have a lot of inefficiencies because we have a staff that’s crammed into spaces that are too small for them. This will allow us to spread the staff out and give them the amount of space that their profession deserves.”

Later in the summer, around July, the National Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICoE) Camp Lejeune satellite center is scheduled to open just down the road from the naval hospital, near the Wounded Warrior Complex.

The $11 million satellite extension is being built with donated funds from the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund and when completed, will have taken only a year to finish.

The satellite center will give the Naval Hospital Camp Lejeune concussion clinic, which Lane said currently runs the busiest concussion clinic in Navy medicine, a modern facility to treat traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress.

“(We already have) a multidisciplinary holistic approach to patients with traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder,” Lane said. “So what (the new center) is going to do is give the staff a state-of-the-art facility for practice, and it’s ideally situated because it’s midway between us and the Wounded Warrior Battalion barracks.”

A few months after the NICoE center opens, the hospital is expecting to move its pharmacy and laboratory into a newly renovated area, complete with robotics that will help make the staff’s jobs easier.

Parts of the hospital’s nearly $130 million construction project will start to come to fruition in the coming year, Capt. David Lane, commanding officer of the hospital, told The Daily News in a recent interview.

“It’s an exciting year for the hospital,” Lane said, adding that the opening of the hospital’s grand quarter deck in August was only the beginning.

Lane, who inherited the massive renovation project from his predecessor, Capt. Daniel Zinder, said that in 2013, the hospital will open multiple new wings and facilities, including an ambulatory care wing, emergency department, urgent care center, family medicine wing with orthopedics, physical therapy and occupational therapy; National Intrepid Center of Excellence satellite center; concussion clinic; neonatal intensive care unit; mental health wing; and updated pharmacy and laboratory system.

The new ambulatory care wing — which is expected to be completed in April — will “more than double the capacity that we have for primary care, urgent care and emergent care,” Lane said.

The wing will have more exam rooms than the old wing and will double the amount of space the hospital staff will have to work, which means hospital patients can expect to be treated faster and in a more comfortable area.

“We’re going to be a lot more efficient when we get over there,” Lane said. “Right now we have a lot of inefficiencies because we have a staff that’s crammed into spaces that are too small for them. This will allow us to spread the staff out and give them the amount of space that their profession deserves.”

Later in the summer, around July, the National Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICoE) Camp Lejeune satellite center is scheduled to open just down the road from the naval hospital, near the Wounded Warrior Complex.

The $11 million satellite extension is being built with donated funds from the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund and when completed, will have taken only a year to finish.

The satellite center will give the Naval Hospital Camp Lejeune concussion clinic, which Lane said currently runs the busiest concussion clinic in Navy medicine, a modern facility to treat traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress.

“(We already have) a multidisciplinary holistic approach to patients with traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder,” Lane said. “So what (the new center) is going to do is give the staff a state-of-the-art facility for practice, and it’s ideally situated because it’s midway between us and the Wounded Warrior Battalion barracks.”

A few months after the NICoE center opens, the hospital is expecting to move its pharmacy and laboratory into a newly renovated area, complete with robotics that will help make the staff’s jobs easier.

The nursery is also undergoing a monumental renovation, with the hospital hoping to step up its abilities to care for sick babies when the new nursery is complete.

Currently, any babies born with serious illnesses at Camp Lejeune have to be sent to New Hanover Medical Center in Wilmington or Vidant Medical Center in Greenville for treatment, but Lane said the completion of the new Level 2B neonatal intensive care unit will change that.

“We’re moving up the ladder in terms of the complexities of the babies that we can care for, and that’s a tremendous service to our patients,” Lane said. “So instead of having to send our sick babies to New Hanover or ECUVidantHospital, we’ll be able to keep them here, which is great for the families.”

Lane also mentioned a new neonatal specialist and OBGYN being added to the hospital staff, meaning the hospital will be able to “care for more moms on the pregnancy side and for sicker babies on the newborn side.”

The hospital’s 12-bed mental health ward will also start renovation next month and will have to be shut down for construction. But the hospital will still be able to treat and care for patients, with help from a local hospital.

Lane said Brynn Marr Hospital is setting aside a wing of its facility for the Naval Hospital’s mental health patients. Naval Hospital doctors will be working at Brynn Marr to be close to their patients, and the Marines and sailors in the mental health ward will be allowed visits from their command at any time — not just during normal visiting hours.

“They’ve just been great partners,” Lane said. “It’s just a great opportunity for the community to come together once again and support each other.”

Lane said the mental health ward renovation project will take approximately nine months; and although he said he expects some hiccups in the beginning, he’s confident it will be a “very successful transition with Brynn Marr.”

This time next year, Lane said the hospital will start renovating all their operating rooms in one of the final pushes of the renovation project.

The entire Naval Hospital construction project is expected to be finished in mid- to late-2014.